Scandinavia

Balls: learn from the right?

The Financial Times reports that one European state has broken ranks with the neo-liberal consensus and started Keynesian policies of extra state spending rather than cuts to deal with the crisis. It is... the solidly right-wing government in Sweden. It has announced plans to spend SKr23bn to boost growth, and said it will invest more if the downturn gets worse. Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt says he can do it because Sweden’s debt and deficit levels are much lower than others’. But if he’s right (as he is) that extra state spending can help drag capitalist economies out of recession...

First hundred days in Denmark

In January 2012 Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the Social-Democrat leader of the leftish coalition government which took office in Denmark after the general election of 15 September 2011, reported on her first 100 days in office; and Denmark took the presidency of the European Union. The Danish government is unusual in Europe because it took office with promises to increase (some) social spending, to ease off immigration restrictions, and to reduce deportations. On that basis, the Red Green Alliance in Denmark, a coalition including most of Denmark's revolutionary left groups, declared “unconditional...

Back the Danish government?

By Martin Thomas Bjarke Friborg reported ( Solidarity 220) that Denmark’s Red Green Alliance (RGA), after doing well in the 15 September parliamentary elections with 7% of the vote, is supporting the new government led by the Social Democratic Party (equivalent of the Labour Party in Britain). Two arguments could be made for supporting the government. Without RGA support, the government alliance would have only 80 votes in parliament, while the “Blue Alliance” round the conservative Venstre party, which led the outgoing government, has 87. And the Danish Social Democrats, unlike similar...

Left turn in Denmark after a decade of right-wing rule

By Bjarke Friborg,a member of the RGA, the SAP (Danish section of the Fourth International) and AWL sympathiser Since 15 September, Denmark is the European country with the strongest and largest socialist representation in parliament. Tripling its votes to 236,000, the Red-Green Alliance (RGA) won a record 12 MPs. Remarkably, the party spokesperson Johanne Schmidt Nielsen received more personal votes than the Labour leader and newly appointed first female PM of Denmark, Helle Thorning Schmidt. RGA is now supporting the incoming minority government of Labour, the Socialist People’s Party and...

Mass murder in Norway: far-right political terror

By bomb and by bullet, Anders Behring Breivik delivered mass murder upon Norway. The ‘motive’ for his rampage, which resulted in the deaths of at least 76 people, is not the stuff of a psychological thriller. The truth of his ‘motive’ – or what we know of the truth so far – is much worse. Breivik’s actions were based upon a cool, considered and in their own terms ‘rational’ political calculation. For political ends he took innocent lives and he is now set to use the Norwegian courts as a stage to justify himself. A more macabre pantomime it would be hard to imagine. What do we know of Breivik...

Cold War spies and 80's women

In the final book of his Millennium Trilogy , Stieg Larsson turned to the nefarious activities of Sweden’s secret state for inspiration. It is the only area of public corruption this one-time editor of the Swedish Trotskyist journal Fjärde internationalen , and expert on the European far-right, had not yet exposed. With The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest , Larsson (who died in 2004) produced a political/spy thriller that is more Ian Fleming than John Le Carré. It is not very subtle. The action often owes more to Larsson’s political message than the natural flow of the story. Not that this...

After the Swedish elections: prospects for the left

After the Swedish elections: what hope for the left? The victory for the right wing alliance was indeed historic. Never before have the Social Democrats lost power in the midst of an economic boom. The SAP’s share of 35.2% of the vote was their lowest since the introduction of universal suffrage in the 1920’s. There was a large swing of white collar /private sector workers votes to the conservative Moderaterna which enabled them to go from 15.3% in 2002 to 26.1%. Moderaterna also won the votes of more 18-30 year olds than the SAP. Other than that, class distinctions remained with 54.4% of LO...

New twist gives hope to the left

Recent opinion polls show a much reduced gap between the left and right blocs and one poll today even indicates that the left bloc have a slight lead. The reason for this swing? The Folk Party, liberals who are the third largest party in the Riksdag , have been caught hacking into Social Democrat computer databases. Both the party secretary and campaign manager have resigned. The irony of this has not been lost on voters. A central theme in the FP's election campaign has been to give police the right to bug the telephone lines of suspected criminals. Such is the fragility of the FP's support...

Time for a new left alliance?

Regardless of the political issues at stake in the elections, the right wing have one clear advantage and that is clear commitment to a governing alliance which will carry out an agreed common programme. By voting for any of the right wing parties, voters pretty much know what it is they are voting for. The same cannot be said of the left parties. The Social Democrats, Greens and Left Party have their own programmes and it is to be assumed by voters that if they compromise a majority in the Riksdag then they will form a similar kind of loose coalition that they have been for the last four...

Comment on the Left Party in Dagens Nyheter

Here is the translated text of an article published in todays Dagens Nyheter written by Henrik Berggren. Clearly the article is written from a social democratic/ liberal perspective and in a rather patronising tone but it does gives a number of historically accurate insights into Left Party history. Gudrun Schyman was the leader of the Left Party during its most electorally successful period in the mid 1990's. She quit the party two years ago and is one of the founding members of the Feminist Initiative, which is currently standing candidates in the Riksdag election. Whilst Left Party leader...

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